Figure 8.

Aspergillus fumigatus corneal infection in PAD4^−/− mice. Corneas of C57BL/6 and PAD4^−/− mice were infected with dsRed expressing A. fumigatus. (A) Corneal sections immunostained with antibodies to Ly6G and citrullinated histone 3 (H3Cit) and counterstained with DAPI nuclear stain. Epi, stroma = corneal epithelium and corneal stroma. Highlighted area shows H3Cit staining in neutrophils. Original magnification is 400×. (B) Representative flow cytometry scatter plots showing total cells from infected C57BL/6 corneas that include CD45⁻ epithelial cells, CD45⁺Ly6G⁺ neutrophils, and Ly6C high monocytes. (C) Percent neutrophils in infected corneas from C57BL/6 and PAD4^−/− mice [percent Ly6G⁺ neutrophils in infected corneas (representative scatter plots from C57BL/6 and PAD4^−/− mice are shown in Figure S2 in Supplementary Material)]. (D,E) Representative corneas showing opacification and RFP expressing A. fumigatus hyphae. (F,G) Quantification of corneal opacity, dsRed as a measure of fungal mass, and CFU. Each data point represents an individual cornea. p > 0.05 using Student’s t-test analyses for panels (C–G), indicating that there are no statistically significant differences between C57BL/6 and PAD4^−/− mice for any of these parameters. These data are representative of five repeat experiments.